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Francine Raymond, Daily Telegraph gardening writer and author, recently turned her garage into a stylish garden room and potting shed.
And she did it on a minimum spend, without losing its use as a garage. If she needs a garage again, she can take a few things out and drive the car in, without making any structural changes.
As well as writing about gardening, Francine is also the author of several books, many about keeping hens in gardens. And she is brilliant at making things look good on a budget – I’ve written about her tips on how to style your garden here. So I knew that her garden room would have lots of really clever ideas.
You can see how easy it would be to use this garden room as a garage again if you needed to. You’re unlikely to need any planning permission (always check) and you won’t lose the property value of a garage.
Now Francine can sit down while propagating plants or potting up seedlings. And she has somewhere to over-winter tender plants. ‘It’s been a revelation,’ she says. ‘I had no idea how much I would enjoy having a garden room.’
Step 1 – add light
The biggest difference between a garage and a garden room is the amount of light you need. The garage already had some light, because her sons used it for building or repairing cars.
The garage ‘before’. You can see windows in the top third of the garage doors (above). And there is a window in the side door, too. Jacques replaced the corrugated iron roof on the other side, so the garage roof looks the same from the garden. He also replaced the door with clear glass double doors.
So Francine engaged Jacques of Cut Once Woodworks to create lots more light. He replaced half the corrugated iron roof with clear corrugated polycarbonate. But he only installed it on one side of the roof. If you look at the side of the garage from the garden, you can’t see the clear polycarbonate.
You can see the sunlight coming in through the clear polycarbonate on the left of the roof. Photo (of me photographing the garage) by Rebecca Crannis.
Jacques also replaced the side door, which had a window in it, with double glass doors onto the terrace.
You can see the clear glass ‘French’ doors on the top left of this picture. Francine has used stylish ‘Dexion’ industrial shelving. And I love how she uses old tin cans for potting up plants.
Francine also had an old Victorian window, which she’d taken out when she was renovating her house. ‘I put it in the garage wall because I didn’t want to lose it,’ she says. Now it gives her view over the garden and throws light on her potting bench.
This window at the back of the garage overlooks the garden. It throws light onto Francine’s potting bench. Photo by Francine Raymond.
Step 2 – the walls
A garage walls are usually thin and are rarely insulated. Francine asked Jacques to line it with a layer of fibreboard. ‘I didn’t insulate the walls,’ she says. ‘Although I could have.’
Francine chose Smartply, an environmentally friendly mdf ply. It’s in a very similar shade to the bricks of her house. So she hasn’t painted it – she has left the texture of the fibreboard bare. You could, however, paint the walls if you preferred.
You can even see the brand name of the fibreboard on the walls. Smartply is an environmentally friendly, cost-effective alternative to certain types of plywood.
Step 3 – the flooring
Francine avoided the cost of expensive flooring by simply painting the garage’s concrete floor with concrete paint. This also means that a car could be driven in at any time.
Francine painted the floor with concrete paint. She has a ‘yellow and grey’ theme in the garden, and has carried this theme through to the garden room. It looks particularly stylish and makes inexpensive materials look chic. Photograph by Andrew Crawley.
The glass doors, corrugated polycarbonate roof and concrete floor painted grey.
Step 4 – fittings and furniture
Francine continued the theme of industrial chic with Dexion shelving. Often used in factories and store rooms, it would be relatively easy to move if she ever had to use the garage for cars again.
And she put simple board shelving under the window for potting up plants.
There is an IKEA day bed and a stool. In the winter, the room is full of over-wintering plants. During the summer, there are geraniums and a recovering banana palm.
Step 5 – the cost…
Francine can’t give an accurate cost of the work, as Jacques is her son and she ‘got mates rates.’ And the shelving was a gift from a friend. ‘But I think it would probably cost you a few thousand pounds, depending on how much you had to pay to have the work done,’ she says.
I checked approximate prices for the materials. You can find heavy duty shelving of a similar style (often known as garage shelving) at under £100 per metre. And similar Smartply was around £20 per 2.44mx1.2m sheet. You can find vintage windows at salvage yards, and concrete floor paint from builder’s merchants. I found TA Multipurpose Floor Paint for concrete floors in 18 colours from Amazon at around £25 a litre.
The outside of the garage-cum-garden room at the front.
Francine’s books and Instagram…
You can see photos of Francine’s garden room on her Instagram feed, which also features her hens, her garden and her collection of succulents.
And you can buy her latest book, The Garden Farmer, from her website. She also sells a range of useful books on keeping hens, ducks, geese or ‘A Couple of Pigs in Your Garden’, plus bee-keeping and general ‘garden farming’ advice.
Shop my favourite garden products, books and tools
I’m often asked for recommendations so I’ve put together lists of the products, books and tools I use on the Middlesized Garden Amazon store. Links to Amazon are affiliate which means I may get a small fee if you buy but it doesn’t affect the price you pay. And I only recommend products I use myself!
For example, this is a list of what I consider to be the gardening tools you really need, with the brands I use.
Another flexible-use garage – this garage in Australia belongs to Stephen Ryan and his partner, Craig. For most of the year, it houses their van, but Craig is a successful botanical artist, so occasionally the garage is used as a gallery or for dinners.
Pin to remember garage to garden room tips
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